The New York Times likes to brag about its place as an icon of American journalism and truth-telling. It has a long history and has had some memorable and impressive reporters in its time.
But the paper has become a propaganda rag on the level of the Soviet Union Pravda over the years, and nothing it prints anymore even has the power to shock people. That’s because it’s become so full of distortions and untruths that it’s no longer even surprising.
Just last year the paper was forced to retract its popular podcast Caliphate after admitting most of it was completely false.
It regularly publishes columnists who write complete garbage and smears against conservatives, and it constantly pushes a narrative which portrays progressives as moral and well-intentioned.
Now it’s latest SNAFU comes from columnist Kevin Roose who actually wrote that because of misinformation and people who don’t believe the media (a “reality crisis”) the Biden Administration should put in place a “reality czar” who will tell people what’s true or not.
TFW the government/media complex establishes its Ministry of Truth, but realizes 'Ministry of Truth' sounds too creepy & totalitarian, so calls it 'the Reality Czar' instead. pic.twitter.com/oHSMNzdu4X
— Geoffrey Miller (@primalpoly) February 3, 2021
Who Decides What’s ‘Real’ or Not?
Roose’s claim that a lot of what’s real is being lost is true, for sure. It’s just that a lot of the problem is happening on the left, not the right. But count on progressives not to see the problem on their own side.
A “reality czar” could easily start by cracking down on QAnon and “scary” thought crimes but imagine how fast it could move to anyone who supports even the basics of the US Constitution?
Gun owners, Christians, libertarians, those who believe in property rights … Any of these could be redefined as out of touch with “reality” by progressive standards and have their publications, opinions and lives shut down. It’s already happening on Big Tech social media, so it wouldn’t be a very big step to have the government do it directly like Roose wants.
Roose even cites the research director at Harvard’s Shorenstein Center on Media, Politics and Public Policy who said that Biden should set up a “truth commission” to get to the bottom of disinformation and propaganda. How long until we start hearing more about “Russian disruptors” and Rachel Maddow goes on her nightly conspiracy rants again?
Welcome to the Soviet Union?
We already know about progressives like Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez calling for blacklists of all Trump Administration officials, and publishing houses putting out bans on any books by former Trump folks.
Add in an extremely biased media and a new “reality” department of the government and you have a trifecta for permanent censorship and criminalization of speech. Anyone who is not progressive could be in serious danger in such a scenario, and if that sounds like an exaggeration it absolutely is not an exaggeration.
The Soviet Union and other dictatorships like Pol Pot in Cambodia and Hitler in Germany also punished people for not believing what the State told them to believe. It’s a very dangerous road to go down. Even if it starts off with what some people believe are good intentions, it can easily become a tool of direct oppression. I’m talking nighttime secret arrests, torture, purging entire publications of content, suppressing free speech with threats of prison, special camps for dissidents, the whole nine yards.
This is not a road that Americans want to try going down, and if it is something that pro-censorship progressives want then anyone who disagrees with them needs to be very clear on the danger and extremism that their left-wing views currently represent to all normal citizens of any political persuasion.
